Flourish
by ipromiseilied
Summary: The adventures of Calla Flourish in her first year of Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry.


She curled around her book, holding it like a new mother would hold her child for the first time. She held the book like letting go would kill her, but just softly enough to let everyone else know how delicate it was. Her whole body was wrapped around the open pages to shield them from the dangers of the outside world. Her eyes carefully scanned the page carefully taking in every possible detail. She didn't just read books, she memorized them, she knew me so we'll that they became a part of her. She lived them. Anytime Calla moved out of the empty storage room she lived, not her own life, but the life of those she read about. Luckily, the empty storage room she chose to inhabit was in a bookstore.

Calla Flourish could spend her entire life in the empty storage room at the back of her father's store. The barely lit room had not been occupied by anything else for as long as Calla could remember. It was small, dark, and cold, but it was the perfect space for someone who was not brave enough to venture out into the world. The perfect space to be filled up with the imagination of an eleven year old girl. Calla had always faced the chalkboard wall, presumably it kept inventory records at some point, but now it was enchanted for a very different task. Whatever it was Calla thought of was immediately drawn onto the board and Calla only ever had room in her head for books. She could never focus on anything else. She always tried though, when her younger brothers talked about the latest quidditch games or some new creature they wanted as a pet, Calla really tried to focus and to really listen to them, but it didn't make a difference. She couldn't discuss quidditch without thinking quidditch through the ages and she couldn't listen to a child's description of an animal without remembering the writings of Newt Scamander. She didn't know how.

Her father only encouraged this. Saying "I can depend on you to keep our family in ravenclaw" and giving her the entire back room of his store when she was five just so she could have a quiet place to read. He couldn't be bothered to tell her to put the book away when she was eating or to turn off the light at three in the morning because she really should be sleeping. He could never do that, not because he had these particular traits, but because he valued  
them. He whispered to her each night as it was time to close the store and apparate home that one day the whole store would be hers and that it takes someone who loves books, wisdom, and knowledge to run a great book store and he was only keeping Flourish and Blotts open so she could take over. He didn't particularly like books, or the store even, but he was a good business man a And he kept everything running even if he didn't enjoy it.

Calla never asked why she was the only one in her family who was enchanted with books. She never asked why her family owned a book store when nobody else read anything more challenging than the tale of three brothers. She never asked why it was that she didn't quite look like any of her family. She didn't like why. She didn't like questions that couldn't quite be answered all of the way or wouldn't be answered with the thought and complexity they deserved so she didn't ask. She spent eleven years of her life not asking any questions at all even though they bubbled beneath her mind anytime she was in the same room as a member of her family. She didn't fit and she wanted to know why, but she did not want to ask because she wanted to know and none of her family ever seemed to really know anything. They were logical and divisive, but they never considered taking the time to really think about difficult things and she knew she had difficult questions. All of them remained unanswered for nearly eleven years.

It was an unpleasantly warm day in London when she got her hogwarts letter. She sat in her storage room curled around her book, same as always. She sat with her back against the wall which always stayed at the perfect temperature thanks to a charm placed in the room years ago to keep the inventory safe. There was a window right above her head that caught the afternoon sun and always lit the pages of the book she was on just enough to read so that the room could still. Be considered barely lit. She held the book tightly and heard a tapping noise. She gently set the book down in her right side and peeked out the window to see a brown speckled owl.

"Go ahead away, the mail gets taken to the office on the window to your right. The window should  
be open." This was not the first time an owl had gone to the wrong window. The storage room used to also be the place where they sorted mail and whenever someone forgot to write "the office" before putting down Flourish and Blotts the owls always seemed to intrude upon her reading room. This owl was not like the others though because every other owl had listened when hearing her instructions. This one just tapped the window again.

She looked at the owl more carefully. It stared at her. It was holding a red envelope. Calla's eleventh birthday was in less than a week. She studied the owl and then opened the window. The owl held out it's leg and Calla swiftly untied the envelope. It was thick, it was red, and it was addressed wrong.

Calla Blott  
The back left storage room  
Flourish and Blotts  
North Side, Diagonal Alley  
London, England


End file.
